


how anybody survives in this life (without someone like you)

by gingermaggie



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Not book compliant, Post-Season/Series 03, not movie compliant, not season 4 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22044583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingermaggie/pseuds/gingermaggie
Summary: She thinks about their last breakup.Well, not their last breakup, actually. Their last get-back-together. The best one. The one that stuck. Still sticks. Will continue to stick, dammit, so help her. She's not losing him again.--AU post season 3. Things go on. Veronica and Logan go on.
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Comments: 57
Kudos: 186





	how anybody survives in this life (without someone like you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jmazzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmazzy/gifts).



> This story has been bouncing around in my head and scratched in fragments for a while (at least since watching season 4 but probably before that too), so I’m glad I was able to bring it to life for [@jmazzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmazzy/profile) ([jjmazzy on tumblr](https://jjmazzy.tumblr.com)) for [the Logan and Veronica Holiday Gift Exchange](https://loganandveronica.tumblr.com/post/188596288468/hello-everyone-after-the-lets-call-it)! I hope you like it 😀 
> 
> So, details! This takes place post season 3 and is not even a little compliant with the movie, the books, or season 4. Oops and/or suck it, RT. 
> 
> Title is from “The Next Ten Minutes” from the musical/movie The Last Five Years.

_I don't know why people run_   
_I don't know why things_ _fall_ _through_   
_I don't know how anybody survives in this life_   
_Without someone like you_   
_I could protect and preserve_   
_I could say no and goodbye_   
_But why?_

“The Next Ten Minutes,” from _The Last Five Years_

\--------------------------------- 

From her perspective—her reasonable, educated, intuitive, perceptive, rarely-ruffled Veronica-Mars perspective—he brings it up out of the blue. 

They’re on the cusp of falling asleep, curled up together, warm and content and relaxed. Her eyes are closed, her hands sliding under his shirt and reveling in the feel of his soft, warm skin, his steady heartbeat. It's not really novel anymore, not after four plus years of steady dating— _new record!_ Veronica thinks, every day a new record, a victory for epic-ness over their own penchant for self-destruction—but it’s endlessly pleasant. 

“Hey, uh,” he says. “What do you think about marriage?” 

Veronica’s eyes shoot open, the moment shattered. She twists in his arms and raises an eyebrow, leveling him with a patented _look._ “Um,” she says. “It’s not _awesome_ _.”_ She tries to keep her tone light and jokey, but unease stirs in her chest as he looks at her with those soft eyes. 

“Is that the extent of your opinion?” he asks, and she can’t get a read on how serious a discussion this is supposed to be. He kisses the tip of her nose, further scrambling the code. “I’m surprised; I didn’t know you had perspectives that could be limited to three words. Or four words, if you count fillers.” 

He's joking around, because he’s Logan, but that could mean, in equal probability, that it’s no big deal or that he’s devastated. She knows he won’t blow up at her even if he’s upset—they're not 18 anymore, they can handle conflict like grownups, most of the time—but she still holds her breath and hopes he isn’t. 

“Hardy har,” she says. She hesitates, but makes herself deal with the conversation. “Seriously, Logan,” she says. “What are you looking for here? I need a little guidance.” 

_Listen. Communicate. Be realistic with expectations. Don’t expect your partner to read your mind. Don’t assume you can read your partner’s mind._

Turns out you have to try at relationships, if you want them to last. Turns out you have to listen to people who aren’t you say things you don’t want to hear, and sometimes take them to heart. Turns out you have to learn, and grow. Turns out therapy really can help, even if you’d rather tap dance on hot coals while detangling twisted headphone cords covered in superglue than sit your ass in a too-cold office that smells infuriatingly like calming lavender and talk about your abandonment issues, mommy issues, trust issues, control issues, and two decades of assorted trauma. 

It helps, but it still fucking sucks. It's still never easy. 

“It’s just been a while since we talked about it,” Logan says, and his tone is a verbal shrug she’s not sure she can take at face value. “Not even when your dad got remarried.” 

She swallows, because she _had_ talked a lot about her views on marriage two years ago, in the days leading up to Keith’s jaunt back down the aisle. She’d just contained such outbursts to Stan’s dumb freezing lavender office, because she was afraid if she let them out anywhere else the gunpowder trail would lead back to her dad and she’d hurt him, accidentally or not. 

And that had probably been the right call, because he was so happy, her dad. And Veronica was happy for him, too. 

When she doesn’t answer, can’t think of a good response, Logan kisses her hair. 

“Don’t worry about it, Veronica,” he says, running a gentle hand up and down her arm, pulling her back in like he’s ready for sleep again. “Really. I was just—checking in.” 

Maybe he means it, because his breath evens out and he’s asleep in minutes. 

Veronica, though? The moonlight shining through the window keeps her awake. 

\--- 

The next day, cramped and uncomfortable in the backseat of her car, fingers sliding over her camera, waiting for a chance to snap a photo of an alleged homewrecker meeting up with a bored housewife in a surprisingly medium-quality hotel—neither the sort of swanky they’d be used to or the kind of shitty most rich folks hope will hide their indiscretions—Veronica thinks about their last breakup. 

Well, not their last breakup, actually. Their last get-back-together. The best one. The one that stuck. Still sticks. Will continue to stick, dammit, so help her. She's not losing him again. 

After the trainwreck that was their freshman year at Hearst, space wasn’t just helpful, it was absolutely necessary. A summer away, focused on her decidedly normal and surprisingly wholesome FBI internship let her take a breath away from the unbearable, burning, cluttered Neptune air. At the same time, it stretched long enough to nurture fondness and—not nostalgia, exactly, but determination to fight for Neptune. For what it could be. For what she wanted it to be. She set aside her tentative plans to transfer to Stanford, registered for classes at Hearst, and went home. 

Vinnie had won the election, but quickly found that being the sheriff was not to his tastes—too much management and not enough action, too many decisions and not enough easy money, probably too much lawfulness and not enough skeezy back alley deals. For all her charms and connections, Veronica never can get a straight answer on whether Vinnie resigned on his own or was quietly and efficiently elbowed out, but by the time she gets back to Neptune he’s comfortably back in his dingy PI office and some out-of-towner hotshot is in his spot thanks to a special temporary appointment from the mayor. 

Her dad is unreservedly thrilled to have her back in the house, and even though she’s exhausted from the travel, Wallace and Mac come over her first night back to stuff themselves with Italian food and marathon every FBI-themed movie they can think of from _Corky Romano_ to _Silence of the Lambs._

Piz isn’t back from his own internship yet; most Hearst students won’t return for another few weeks. He texts once to check if she got home okay, and she responds that she did, and she’s really tired, and she’ll talk to him later. 

The last days of summer roll by quickly, and the semester arrives with the grace and elegance of a train crashing into a brick wall. 

Even though it’s only syllabus week Veronica throws herself into reading for her classes and looking for a part time job that isn’t at the fucking library. Meanwhile by Wednesday she’s approached by a pair of juniors in her chem of food class wanting her to track down some guy one of them made out with at a party last semester and can’t stop thinking about. On Thursday a girl who apparently went to Neptune High finally wants to cash in on Veronica’s old background-check-on-my-parents service. Friday brings an email from one of the assistant soccer coaches on a private account detailing his suspicion that his boss is engaging in unscrupulous recruiting practices, and every day Veronica feels like she might explode from the tension of waiting to run into Logan for the first time since she stared at him bloody and grinning in the Hearst cafeteria. 

It’s not until Saturday that Mac tells her, in a casual way that Veronica can tell is carefully practiced in its nonchalance and meticulously timed in its deliberate offhandedness: He's studying abroad for the entirety of fall semester, in Italy. 

She wants to laugh at the care Mac uses to break this information, wants to tease her for thinking Veronica cares a whit about Logan’s academic or geographical conditions. 

_And you’re telling me because...?_ she thinks about saying, but she can’t quite choke the words out. Because it might sound like she was being a jerk to Mac. Like she’s mocking her friend for caring. That's why she doesn’t say it. Not because she knows how clearly the implicit lie would shine through. 

The semester goes with minimal drama; she takes cases and gets into the occasional scrape, but none of her TAs commit murder and no one gets any more footage of her in any sort of compromising position. She thinks about trying to avoid trouble, trying to avoid cases, being _normal,_ but that stretch of senior year where normal was the watchword is a pretty good touchpoint for why that’s a fucking terrible idea. So instead she thinks, _moderation,_ and she’s...careful. 

It's a strange new feeling for her, and a frustrating one. She finds herself gun-shy, and it’s bad for business. She botches what should have been a cake job, pictures of a boyfriend cheating, because she thinks she notices someone following her, trailing behind her car, lurking in the shadows, and she bails before she gets the money shot, heart in her throat. 

She thinks about where her investigations have landed her before. Losing friends and shattering relationships. Staring down the barrel of a gun held by a boy who had _raped_ her. Inside a burning refrigerator. Starring in a viral looks-like-sex tape. Framed for any number of crimes. _Committing_ any number of crimes. She thinks about getting her head shaved with no one around to see her fall, and she’s _scared._

“Not to get too pretentious undergrad about it,” Mac says one night, still early in the semester, half asleep on the Mars’ couch while Veronica attacks a stack of blank index cards with sharpies, highlighters, and the pages of her sensation and perception textbook. “But you have to stop trying to be Atlas.” 

Veronica freezes, pen hovering in midair. 

Mac doesn’t wait for a reply, and she doesn’t bother to sit up or even open her eyes. 

“You get that we love you, right? We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. And part of loving you is being there for you. If we didn’t want to be, we wouldn’t. I'm a big girl, and Wallace is a big boy, and your dad is, like, the biggest boy.” She wrinkles her nose. “Or, you know. However you can say that without sounding creepy.” 

“Mac,” Veronica begins, but her friend isn’t having it. 

“I know you feel shitty about—a lot of things. And maybe you should. I'm not pretending you’re Saint Veronica. But at a certain point you gotta let it go. You're dragging yourself down, and we’re not going to let you. We can help hold it.” 

It takes her so long to choke down the tightness in her throat that by the time she opens her mouth to respond, a delicate snore escapes from Mac. Veronica can’t help the quick giggle that bubbles up, and she pulls a blanket off the armchair to cover the other girl instead of speaking. 

And she thinks about it. 

She understands where Mac is coming from, understands she isn’t Superman, but she can’t figure out how to push through it. She’s stuck thinking about her father losing the election and all the times he’s almost died; about Wallace getting electrocuted, about him risking expulsion whenever she crooks a finger; about Logan, ridiculously—Logan ducking to avoid the bullet from Beaver’s gun and beating the hell out of a mobster’s son and walking into the River Stix just because she was already there. 

She feels cold, and she wraps her arms around herself, hugging tightly, but it’s not the same as someone else doing it. She hates feeling like she needs someone else to do it. 

But Mac is insistent, doesn’t let the subject drop after that one conversation, unconscious though it may have made her, and Veronica can feel the strain of her friends and her dad worrying about her. So against every instinct screaming inside her, she tries to let other people help shoulder the load—her dad; Wallace and Mac; Vinnie fucking Van Lowe, on occasion. Even Parker tags along sometimes, distracting marks with bubbly conversation and expert hair flips, and taking to lockpicking with what Veronica finds to be hilarious and vaguely unnerving enthusiasm. 

Not Piz, though. Just—not Piz. 

She doesn’t ask him to help, ever, because she rarely asks people to help unless they have something concrete to give. And it’s not that he doesn’t, probably—she figures he must be useful for _something_ _,_ but she hasn’t bothered to try to figure out what that might be. 

And unlike most of her friends and even some acquaintances, he appeared to have no inclination to prove otherwise. _I’m a lover, not a fighter,_ he’d told her once. 

It's the sort of thing Wallace would say, but he’d say it and follow her into battle anyway. _Had_ followed her into battle anyway, and smashed a vase over the head of a pissed-off small-time wannabe drug dealer two weeks into the semester. Or tried to—the vase, as it happened, was plastic and so _bonked_ rather than shattered, but the dude went down anyway and it’s the thought that counts. 

When Veronica relayed the story later, with no small amount of enthusiasm and embellishment designed to make Wallace blush and roll his eyes from the other side of the room, Piz had seemed uncomfortable. 

“I thought you said the sheriff’s department was better now, with that new guy,” he’d said. “Why didn’t you just call them when you figured out where he was keeping the drugs?” 

Veronica had frowned. “I said they were _on their way_ to _half-competent,_ ” she’d corrected. “And anyway,” she’d added, jerking a thumb toward Wallace, “I’ve got my own muscle, so why not use it?” She was still adjusting to using her resources without feeling like an asshole, but she was trying. She was trying very hard. 

For some reason, despite all preexisting evidence to the contrary, she’d half expected Piz to say something like, _Call_ me _next time,_ or, _Well, don’t loop me out. I want to help, too,_ or even, _I’m here, if you ever need anything._

Instead, he gave a little huff and said, “Better him than me. I’m delicate,” in a way that suggested he was trying to be funny but actually meant it. That suggested he was unhappy with his girlfriend’s escapades into intrigue and danger and was ready to wash his hands of it. 

Despite herself, she’d thought of another boy, lightyears away, who couldn’t dream of something like that. _I’m not built to stand on the sidelines._

When she and Piz break up, five weeks into the semester, it’s probably the longest one-on-one conversation they’ve had since she left for Virginia, and it’s still only 27 minutes. 

\--- 

She almost feels guilty about how little her life changes, post-Piz. It only throws into sharp relief what little impact he had on her when they _were_ together. She hangs out with Mac and Wallace (though no longer in the latter’s room; it seems like a no-brainer to grant Piznarski his own dorm in the divorce) 

She doesn’t make any drastic changes at all. She decides, again, actively, not to quit cases cold turkey, not to take on too many, or ones that are obviously too dangerous. 

Instead she remembers _moderation,_ considers getting it tattooed on her forearm. When things get too deep, she uses her resources. She calls her dad; calls Wallace; sometimes, _sometimes_ calls Deputy Sacks. 

She also makes an effort to call when she doesn’t need help. She and Mac and Parker have movie campouts at Veronica’s house; and she goes to Wallace’s club basketball games and cheers louder than anyone, which isn’t that hard at _club_ basketball games, but she’s a _lot_ louder; and they take day trips to the beach with other people Veronica doesn’t know as well but tries being friendly towards; and she cooks dinner with her dad; and they all go paintballing and they have _fun,_ in between stressing about midterms and investigations and interpersonal drama. 

Gradually, with baby steps intermingled with the occasional resplendent leap, she figures out how to really treat her friends like friends again. Like she used to, before it all went to hell. Before Lilly died. It’s during those moments of pure friendship and joy with new people, new friends—even Wallace is _new,_ in the grandest scheme of her life—that she misses Lilly so desperately that it hurts like a brand new knife wound. But it’s also during those moments that she feels her fabulous friend sitting beside her, shriek-laughing at Parker’s dirtiest jokes and groaning at Mac’s puns and heckling the terrible sports movies Wallace tries to convince them to watch. 

So she tries to enjoy the memories of the good old days, hold them close in her heart. The memories of Lilly, anyway. Memories of other people she misses? Well. It’s a case by case basis. Some stay locked away, unless she wants to spend a fun afternoon crying in the shower, or barely holding herself back from sending some extraordinarily embarrassing and probably expensive international text messages. 

The semester goes. She aces her classes, reunites a classmate with the little boy she gave up for adoption at fifteen, thinks of Jackie and sends a postcard towards New York. She takes up kickboxing, in her abundant spare time (ha), and she registers for spring classes. 

When she needs help, _really_ needs it, she asks for it, through gritted teeth or not. 

She doesn’t shoulder it all. 

Veronica spends the last two weeks of winter break on the edge of anticipation and something like mild panic, wondering when she’ll see him. She knows better than to think they won’t run into each other—their time apart freshman year and the awkward run-ins that ensued convince her of that. It's not a big school at all. She's reminded every time she passes and awkwardly greets Piz as she walks across campus, or ends up near in line at the cafeteria near someone she busted for one thing or another, or makes awful, agonizing eye contact with Gory Sorokin across the library. 

But then he doesn’t come back. 

Instead, he shuffles straight from Italy to another semester abroad in Ireland. From what Veronica hears, Hearst students aren’t typically allowed to study abroad two semesters in a row—too much disruption of their usual educational development. Still, she thinks bitterly, in the dark moments she lets herself think about it, it’s far from atypical that Logan Echolls might throw money at a rule until it decides to go away. 

Her sources, though—because yes, of course she has sources, of course she’s keeping tabs; they may be off speaking terms but it’s _Logan_ —suggest that his perfect GPA fall semester is what actually tips the scale pretty far in his favor, as do the two additional classes he takes each semester in some independent study/telecommute hybrid, on top of the three mandated and mostly blow-off courses included in the study abroad trip curricula. 

Dick had gone to Italy too, but he returns in the spring with a respectable C in all his classes and stories of exotic debauchery that she hears related ad nauseum when she accompanies Mac and Wallace to some party. It sounds like they had an excellent time with a lot of alcohol and a lot of _very_ lovely women. 

Veronica mostly tries to tune out the conversation, especially given she’s not a part of it—Dick and his entourage are somewhere behind the couch where she’s watching Mac crush some freshman boys at video games—but the boy has a talent for making his voice carry. She assumes it’s just a symptom of being Dick Casablancas, not a cultivated skill, until she hears, pointed: “Of course, Logan always improves when he’s away from any negative influences that might be holding him bitch—I mean, _back.”_

She doesn’t give him the dignity of turning, even though she knows she’s cultivated her evil eye to the point of disintegrating him where he stands. But Dick’s never been the brightest or the most likely to quit while he’s ahead. The cushion behind her dips with the weight of an overgrown douchebag, and she grits her teeth. 

“Hey Ronnie,” he says, ruffling her hair like he has an actual death wish. “Miss me?” 

“Desperately,” she replies, not taking her eyes off Mac’s avatar onscreen. “Miss my taser?"

“Getting right to the flirting, I see,” Dick chirps back. “Sorry, Mars, but I’m spoken for.” 

“Condolences to your bride.” 

“Y'know, I’m glad time hasn’t dulled that razor-sharp wit,” he says. “Don’t you wanna know if Logan sent any messages for you?” 

Finally, she looks at him. “I assume if he wanted to contact me he knows there are better ways than sending his dancing monkey as messenger.” 

Dick smirks like her answer has given something away, which just makes her want to glare harder. 

“Guess we won’t know, huh?” he says, and, thankfully, retreats. 

Wallace glances over at her with concern in his eyes, but she shakes her head, trying to brush off the ache of it. 

_I told him not to talk to me,_ she reminds herself. _This was my decision, to be done._

She stands abruptly, startling even Mac in her video-game focus, and plasters on a smile. “I’m going to get a Coke. Anyone want anything?” 

She bolts before they have a chance to answer. 

\-- 

Spring semester continues; life continues. 

Wallace shows up unexpectedly at his mom’s house with laundry one Tuesday and learns unequivocally that she and Keith are—how to put it— _seeing each other_ again. 

He tells Veronica about it in devastatingly colorful terms, and she threatens him with bodily harm, hands clapped over her ears, until he cuts it out. Still, neither of them can begrudge their parents their happiness, once the mental image is as bleached from their brains as it can be. 

There's a flurry of activity associated with committing to and officially declaring majors—Wallace, engineering. Mac, computer science with minors in web development, cyber security, and computer engineering. Veronica, double major in criminology and psychology. 

She wonders if students studying abroad sophomore spring declare from their exotic locales, or if they wait until they get back. She doesn’t care. She's just idly curious. But she still stops herself from picking up a study abroad pamphlet on the table outside her advisor’s office to see if it says anything about the subject. 

Campus crime rates are still low compared to freshman year, and Veronica allows herself to enjoy some relaxation from high stakes. She helps her dad out with as many cases as she can fit between exams and essays, and he even lets her come along to hunt a bail jumper over spring break, leaving Weevil—fresh into a second chance at a Mars Investigations job he refuses to fuck up again—to watch the office. 

It goes well—they both go well, the job and the Weevil’s-New-Job, and there’s this glimmer of hope and peace as the school year ends that feels very out of character for Neptune. Veronica considers considering trusting it. 

Then one day, at the beginning of summer, Madison Sinclair shows up at Veronica’s kickboxing gym for a class, and they stare at each other with equally spooked expressions. 

They don’t speak that day, but Madison doesn’t take the hint of Veronica’s presence and stay away. Instead she’s back every week, drilling with a focused intensity, trying, improving, infuriating Veronica. Madison never tries to strike up a conversation, but she never makes any snide comments or even snotty faces. She keeps to her own space, and Veronica keeps to hers. 

It takes a few months of this—almost all summer—before anything changes, and it changes with a shuddering bang. When Madison appears in front of her in the locker room after class, the reactionary bile that’s been slowly fading in intensity just through frequency of appearance returns in full force, and Veronica almost chokes. 

“Hey,” Madison says, and she still doesn’t sound like she’s about to play middle school bully. “Can we talk? Grab...coffee, or something?"

Looking back later, Veronica will assume it was raw shock that led her to trail Madison to a nearby coffeeshop and sit across her with a latte before throwing any punches. Madison herself is civil, if brief, when she says, “There are things I need to apologize to you for. I still don't like you, and I don't plan on braiding your hair or whatever, but I need to get this out."

Veronica doesn't know if Madison got hit in the head or got into therapy or is doing some kind of twelve steps thing, but she sits in silence and lets the other girl sketch a brief recap of her bitchiest ways, and conclude with an apparently genuine expression of apology. She doesn't offer explanations or excuses, but they linger under the surface, the consequences of circumstance and self-esteem and raw angry emotion. Veronica aches to know the source of this conversation, but her pride keeps her from asking. 

At the end of Madison's speech, Veronica says, "Thanks." She doesn't know what else there is to say. She's not sure what forgiving Madison might feel like, so she's not sure whether she has. But she feels like she can accept this. More than that, she feels compelled to apologize in return. Obviously she hasn't matched Madison atrocity for atrocity in their little war, but she knows better than to play the innocent. She lays out her regrets in the same curt, clinical manner Madison did, and the other girl nods, once. 

"Cool," she says. "See you around, Veronica."

Veronica doubts it, but she doesn't say so.

They’re not friends, probably never will be, but maybe they aren’t enemies anymore. Maybe they don’t have to be. 

It feels a little bit sick and wrong, to get something like closure with Madison Sinclair, to start building a bridge, and then go home to continued radio silence from Logan. In some ways, she’s now technically closer to the person she’d considered her worst enemy than the person she’d thought, quietly, in the back of her mind, might have been the closest possible thing to the love of her life. You know, if she believed in something like that. 

\--- 

Towards the end of the summer, just before the start of junior year, Keith and Alicia move in together. It really is nothing but wonderful news to Veronica, despite everything, and she finds herself quietly but unreservedly happy for them. Still, she doesn’t want to live in the middle of their honeymoon phase. Mac suggests they room together, since she spent sophomore year in a lucky single after Parker decided to take advantage of Chi Beta Alpha’s late rush program and doesn't expect to win the room lottery again. Veronica counteroffers and convinces her and Wallace to go in on renting a tiny ramshackle house a few blocks from campus with her and it’s _perfect._

She has her friends and her dad and her education and her appropriately proportioned excitement and she’s good. Honestly. 

In fact, by the time junior year starts, she can say with certainty that she's gotten used to life without Logan Echolls. 

She's okay. She's fine. She's great, really. 

Yes, she had loved him. And yes, sometimes she missed him like a torn limb. But she’s proven the existence of a happy existence without him, and that’s that. 

And then she walks into her 3:30pm Tuesday-Thursday class, English Language—a 300-level English course is the last gen ed she has to knock out, and studying the Great Vowel Shift and memorizing the International Phonetic Alphabet seems vastly preferable to analyzing half a dozen books about 19th-century women having sex and then dying tragically—and sees Logan Echolls in the second row, dutifully laying out a row of colored pens next to a clean, open notebook. 

She's interested to find that her body does not shut down. Instead, she feels incredibly level-headed, incredibly awake. She knows exactly what she's doing as she slides into the seat next to him, projecting confidence that, in actuality, appears to be lodged somewhere in her throat. 

He glances over at her and she sees the sight of her hit him three separate times: the initial shock, the glow of warmth behind his eyes and the start of a smile, the burst of wary realization and the shuttering of any vulnerability. It stings somewhere deep in her chest, to see that closed-off look in those expressive eyes. 

She wants to see him smile.

"Of all the gin joints," she says, managing to sound careless despite the ridiculous irregular thud of her heart. 

She's shocked at how instantly it works; he bursts into color with a smile. "That's my line," he shoots back. "I'm the English major. What's a nice crim major like you doing in a place like this?"

Veronica quirks an eyebrow. "How do you know my major?" she asks. _Keeping tabs?_ she doesn't say. 

"Educated guess."

"Wouldn't have pegged you to go the lit route," she muses. "Were the classes on rich debauchery all full?"

"Couldn't keep up my grades in booze and womanizing," he snarks back, but there's an edge to his voice that makes her realize she hit a nerve. And she didn't even mean to this time.

"Logan," she starts, but he shakes his head. 

"I've always liked reading," he says, and guilt pours through her at his need to defend himself. "And it pairs nicely with the journalism concentration."

He shifts, pulling his sleeves over the backs of his hands. 

Veronica tries to swallow the panic rising in her. How is she already fucking this up?

"You and your literary aspirations," she says, carefully light and teasing. "Are you thinking Pulitzer first, or Nobel?"

"Why not shoot for a joint ceremony?" he asks blandly, but he quirks a brow. 

Before she can think of a clever rejoinder, the professor calls the class to attention. She would try to keep the momentum of the conversation going—she's talking to Logan and it's been so _long—_ but he's apparently engrossed in the lesson, insofar as you can call a syllabus review and a brief overview of the semester a _lesson._ Veronica decides to follow his lead, but when the clock hits 4:45 she feels electric again, and expectant. 

"So look, Logan," she says, but he speaks at the same time.

"I won't be offended if you switch seats."

Just like that. Quick. Decisive. But he won't meet her eyes. 

_"I_ sat down next to _you,"_ she reminds him.

He shrugs. Glances at her. "You dated me, too," he says, light. "We all make mistakes."

"Don't be a dick," she says, fire rising in her tone. "If you don't want me to sit with you, say so, but don't act like I'm the one with the problem."

His expression is oddly fierce for someone who was dutifully taking notes on the _syllabus_ half an hour earlier. "Excuse me if I'm getting some mixed signals here, Veronica. You break up with me. You tell me you need space. You go a year without talking to me, and now you want to act like everything is buddy buddy A-OK? Well, it's not. It's not just magically alright because you've decided you want it to be. I'm kind of sick of trying to read your mind and figure out when you're mad at me." 

She must look like hell in response to this outburst, because he deflates. He glances around, and when Veronica follows suit she realizes the classroom emptied out at some point. Thank goodness. It's bad enough that she's here for this without witnesses. 

"You're right," she says, and he almost flinches. "I'm sorry."

There's a long silence. "Okay," he says. 

"I'd like to be friends," she offers. "Maybe. Someday. If you want."

"Yeah," he says, but she's not sure she believes him. Not sure he believes her. "Sure."

"Is it okay if I sit with you?"

He smirks a little at that, halfhearted. "Knock yourself out."

She stands and swings her backpack over her shoulder. When she hits the doorway, she looks back at him, slowly packing his pens, giving her time for a head start.

"It's good to see you, Logan," she says, and of course she means it. 

They don't hang out a lot outside of class, but they always talk before and after, and the tension never hits a breaking point like that first day. Once or twice they walk all the way out of the building together before splitting toward separate destinations. She thinks he hangs out with Mac sometimes, and that he maybe has a class with Wallace, because sometimes she hears the edge of a story about him, before they go silent at her entrance or catch themselves in front of her. They bump into each other at parties, when Veronica bothers to go, and usually exchange pleasantries of some sort. Once he gives her his table when she arrives as he's finishing up lunch and the cafeteria is especially busy. 

Mostly, Veronica relishes the experience of knowing Logan is _here_ _,_ in the country, on campus, in her class. That she could reach out and touch him, even if she never does. She talks to Logan when she sees him, doesn't pine after him when she doesn't. She treats him like a friendly acquaintance, and holds her breath lest something ruin it. 

Second semester, she wins a scholarship that makes a study abroad trip actually possible. There's a flurry of activity and then she's on a plane to New Zealand before she really has time to process it. 

Parker goes, too, which is something that would have annoyed Veronica freshman year but is truly welcome now. She's grateful her friendship with Parker survived everything with--well, everything. Parker is one of the most loyal, fierce, intelligent, passionate people she knows, and it's nice to have that kind of safety net here, even if she doesn't think she'll need it. 

And maybe they get drunk one night and talk for hours about Logan, and Lilly, and Aaron and Duncan and Beaver and Mercer and Dick and Madison and Logan and again, but--what is a college study abroad for if not drunkenness and oversharing?

“Holy fuck, Veronica,” Parker says, throwing back another shot. “I knew it was a lot, but— _shit_.” 

Maybe another whole semester apart should have underscored the distance between her and Logan, but the morning after that conversation with Parker, Veronica finds herself drafting an email to him. Not about her and Parker, just—checking in. She tells him about the zipline they rode and the beach they visited and the rocks they're ostensibly studying. He replies 12 hours later with a story about Wallace crashing a remote-controlled plane into Dick and a picture of Mac sticking out her tongue, and a steady correspondence grows from there, the whole time she's gone.

Parker smirks knowingly every time Veronica boots up the computer, which is kind of annoying, but she lets it slide because honestly, she owes Parker a lot of gratitude. She can have some smug nosiness for her trouble. 

\---

When Veronica gets back to the states, she and Logan start hanging out. They don't make a big deal of it, don't even really talk about it. It just happens.

They grow back together slowly, carefully, a shattered bone. She refuses to take him for granted, refuses to let him slip away, refuses to let herself push him away.

He comes over for movie nights with the gang, and helps out with cases, and studies at the library when she has shifts—all the while definitely not thinking about all the time they spent in the stacks freshman year like a couple of cliches, just like she isn't. They're just friends. 

In fact, by senior year Veronica thinks you could, without stretching too far, label them as best friends. Which is an odd status for them, a position they have somehow always yet somehow never filled. And she's just so _glad_ about it, being Logan's friend. Knowing she can text him without it being weird, knowing they can grab lunch together without angst and bullshit. And maybe sometimes she nearly drowns in her desire to kiss him, but she's gotten good at ignoring urges like that. She knows better now. Some bridges are born to burn. 

No matter what, though, Logan important to her, like he always has been, even when she hated him. That feels right.

When he does kiss her for the first time, again, there’s no drama to it. It's not the passionate burst of moments they’ve built beginnings on before. Instead they’re slouched on the couch, vegging out after the thrill of a successful stakeout, the TV ringing out a tinny laugh track as they pass a carton of ice cream back and forth. 

There aren't any words leading up to it. He just passes her the spoon, easy as anything, and tilts his face down to hers, slow enough she could stop him. She thinks about it, terrified of ruining Logan once and for all, but then his mouth is there, soft, delicate, peaceful, and she knows this is worth whatever it takes to keep it.

\--- 

She's 26 now, and so fucking happy with her life it’s almost painful. She has a steady job doing fulfilling work, a good relationship with her dad and stepmom, great friends, a steady if slow path through trauma recovery. And she has Logan. 

Logan, who holds her hand in the dark and smiles at her like the sun. Logan, who cooks dinner and binge watches TV with her and always has ink stains on his fingers and leaves his sandy towels on the bathroom floor after long days surfing. 

Logan, who kicks ass and takes names by her side, who pursues his journalism career with passion and enthusiasm and conscientiousness, who loves their friends and thinks of her dad as his own and knows she kicks plenty of ass herself and absolutely fucking cherishes her. 

Veronica loves Logan so much it's stupid. She loves him deeply, unequivocally, completely, confidently. 

And then he asks her about marriage, and she feels a little bit adrift. 

\--- 

“I hope you wouldn’t be expecting me to change my last name,” she says, apropos of nothing, wandering into the kitchen a few weeks later. She pours on a teasing tone so he’ll know she’s not picking a fight. 

Logan’s at the stove, stirring some sort of concoction, and he stills at her words, just enough that she can’t conclusively clock whether he's reacting to her speaking or to what she might mean. He doesn’t say anything. Waits her out. 

“Veronica Mars has a pretty good flow to it, right?” she presses on, purposefully casual. She leans against the fridge like this is any other conversation. 

“It does,” he agrees, giving nothing away. 

“Packs a punch,” she continues. She mimes a one-two punch towards the living room, and Logan smirks at her antics. “So you see why I’m hesitant to set aside such an iconic nomenclature, especially while still in the throes of establishing myself professionally through a brand that includes my name.” 

“I always thought I'd take your last name, actually,” he quips. Except—there's a sincerity in the quiet way he doesn’t meet her eyes when he cracks the joke that belies...something. He twists the burner off and glances at her, gauging her reaction. When she gives nothing away, he smiles. Soft, a little embarrassed. “Not like I'm super attached to the Echolls legacy, right? Given the choice, I'd rather be Logan Mars.” 

Her breath catches, hearing it out loud, and she’s surprised by the depth of the emotion it stirs in her heart. She swallows. 

“It's got a decent ring,” Logan continues, apparently oblivious. “For the byline, of course,” he adds with classic Logan casualness, tucking his chin into his neck. His typical tangle of layers: snark beneath faux earnestness masking genuine thought and feeling. 

“Of course,” she agrees, strolling her way towards him. He doesn’t resist as she grabs handfuls of his t-shirt and pulls him down for a kiss. “I think—I think I could work with that,” she says, soft. 

His expression is almost painfully tender, eyes lit with cautious hope, as he tucks her hair behind her ear, thumb skimming across her cheek. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she says, kissing him again. His hands are warm against her back as he holds her close. “Let’s...talk about it. 

\--- 

They do talk about it. They talk about it a lot, over the next month. Their high school selves would be aghast at how much they just sit around _talking_ about it. Communication to the nth degree. 

They talk about the examples of marriages they’ve had in their lives. How little good they’ve seen. How easy it is to write off the institution, instead of the individuals. To put blame on something concrete rather than a thousand tiny fractures. 

Over time, Veronica describes the way it felt, watching her parents’ marriage crumble apart. How it hurt her, not to mention how it hurt her dad. How she pieced together ways to protect herself. How distance keeps you safe. How it’s important to be able to cut and run at any time, if the ship starts to sink. 

“Except,” she says, soft into his shoulder. They're cuddled up together on the couch, his arm steady around her, keeping her from toppling off. Jeopardy flashes on the screen before them, muted, and they don’t pay it any mind. “Except I've always said that the hero is the one that stays, and the villain is the one that splits. The good guy fights for it, and the bad guy gives up.” She looks up at him with a self-deprecating smirk. “I know it will shock you to find I may occasionally partake in double standards and hypocrisy.” 

Logan projects utter disbelief. “You? No!” he mock-gasps, ducking down to kiss her nose and snuggling closer. 

“Logan, I love you,” she says, and he lets out the relieved little ghost of a sigh he almost always does when she says those words. His shoulders relax a little more, his eyes shine a bit brighter. It's like when she says it, a balm is applied to his very soul. She forgets, sometimes, how important it is to remind him of how she feels. How important it is to remind herself. 

In the same way, she has to remind herself to open up, to tell him what she’s thinking, feeling, wondering, hoping, hiding. To let them grow from it. To be a team. 

She has to remind herself, but she does it. 

In return, Logan explains why it matters to him, to make it official, so to speak. To have that piece of paper, to declare it in front of everyone, like he did at that ridiculous party junior year of high school, before everything went to shit. Not to stake a claim, but to affirm a devotion. To shout it from the rooftops that he loves her and she loves him and they’re gonna be okay. 

“It’s not that I’m trying to trap you,” he says one day, and it sounds painful, like he desperately needs her to understand. “I would never want to trap you.” 

“Logan, no,” she says. “I didn’t--I never thought that. I know you wouldn’t. I love you,” she says, relishes his subtle exhale. “I don’t need trapping. I'm not going anywhere. I know what life looks like without you, and I'm not interested in it. At all. It's just...taking some reevaluation of some of my fundamental beliefs, you know?” 

He looks at her seriously. “I’m not trying to change you, either, Veronica,” he says. “I love you no matter what. Even if you don’t want to get married.” 

She shakes her head, trying to figure out how to explain. “I think I have changed, though,” she says. “It’s still—not the most comfortable idea for me. But it’s not unimaginable anymore.” 

He doesn’t rush to fill the silence she leaves, gives her time to think. 

“It’s not you,” she says. “I mean, it is. In that you’re a good man, and my best friend, and you inspire me to be better. But I think part of it is...growing up. Getting educated. I'm learning to...question my beliefs. Realize I'm not right all the time. And especially that I wasn’t right all the time at seventeen.” 

Logan smiles. “You were right a lot of the time at seventeen,” he says generously, and she loves him so fiercely. 

“Well of course,” she says. “I’m not going to get carried away.” 

His fingers thread through her hair and kisses her, slow and soft. “So now what?” he asks. 

When she looks into his eyes, she feels comfortable. She feels safe. She feels like they’ve fought hard and maybe, just maybe, they’ve won—as much as someone can win in a dark and difficult world. She feels loved, and supported, and understood. And she loves him, too, so much. 

“Now we...get engaged?” she offers, feeling almost shy, but surprisingly confident in the words themselves. 

Logan kisses her, gentle, but with enough of an edge that her heart races. "I could be persuaded," he says.

"I bet there's something in this house we could use for your engagement ring," she says, climbing into his lap and kissing him again.

"I get an engagement ring?" he asks against her mouth, hands pressing warm into her back. 

"Sure," she says. "I assume I get one." She kisses his neck. "Fair is fair." She kisses his ear. "We can both show off even before we get officially hitched."

"Trying to mark me as taken, Mars?" he laughs into her hair. 

She pulls back and smiles at him. "Well, you are, aren't you?"

He kisses the tip of her nose, grinning. "Always," he promises. 

**Author's Note:**

> What is pacing!!! This was supposed to be a far-future fic with a very brief flashback to/summary of college, but then...this. Hope it works for you! I know the actual getting-back-together is vague and loose, but that’s partially because it might be its own fic one day. Here’s hoping. 
> 
> Not to get too into the weeds of my fic title choices, but “The Next Ten Minutes” really just hits on my headcanon of Veronica realizing she has a lot of thoughts on why marriage is a horrible idea that maybe don’t apply anymore when the person who’s asking is truly good for you. 
> 
> Also, in my typical researchy fashion, I picked random things to check up on, like whether Corky Romano predates Veronica Mars. It does, thank goodness, by several years; I would have been devastated to cut that reference. In making that check, though, I discovered that both critics and audiences absolutely fucking hate that movie, which is astonishing to me as it’s a staple of my childhood. I guess objectively it’s a lowkey terrible movie, but I will not accept that. 
> 
> Anyway, when all is said and done: happy holidays jjmazzy!!!!!!!!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] - how anybody survives in this life (without someone like you)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24099370) by [gingermaggiereads (gingermaggie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingermaggie/pseuds/gingermaggiereads)




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